The Apu Trilogy: Aparajito

1956, Satyajit Ray, India, 127 min.

Bengali with English subtitles

Introduced by foreign correspondent and writer Somini Sengupta

Aparajito, the second entry in The Apu Trilogy, picks up where the first film leaves off, with Apu and his family having moved away from the country to live in the bustling holy city of Varanasi. While Apu grows up from a small child to a curious teenager, we observe the education he gains —both academic and moral —as well as his complex relationship with his mother.

“It’s a masterpiece for which terms like “˜simplicity’ and “˜profundity’ seem inadequate.”

—Jonathan Rosenbaum

“Standing above fashion, it creates a world so convincing that it becomes, for a time, another life we might have lived.”

—Roger Ebert

About Cabaret Cinema

In tandem with the Rubin’s exhibit Henri Cartier-Bresson: India in Full Frame, Cabaret Cinema is featuring movies that exemplify the legendary photographer’s lesser-known influence on the world of moving images. He served as an assistant to director Jean Renoir in The Rules of the Game, which he called “one of the summits of art,” and appeared in the film himself. Acclaimed director Satyajit Ray, who began his foray into filmmaking after meeting Renoir, cites Henri Cartier-Bresson as a key influence in his work on The Apu Trilogy, now recognized as a masterpiece of Indian cinema.

About the Introducer

Somini Sengupta is a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. Now based in New York, she has spent a decade abroad, with postings in West Africa, India, and Silicon Valley. She’s written about child soldiers, receding glaciers, and Himalayan monarchs; her first book, The End of Karma: Hope and Fury among India’s Young, was among The Economist‘s Best Books of 2016.